Main Area and Open Discussion > Living Room

Tweenbots: A Social Experiment with Human-dependent Robots

<< < (2/3) > >>

Lashiec:
How sweet :)

mouser:
how long until the artist gets arrested for creating "Devices Which Could Be Used for Terroristic Purposes" ?  :P

SKesselman:
How long before we're robot-dependent humans??
(Can I have mine now? I could use some help...)

Tweenbots: A Social Experiment with Human-dependent Robots

40hz:
how long until the artist gets arrested for creating "Devices Which Could Be Used for Terroristic Purposes" ?  :P
-mouser (April 12, 2009, 10:48 PM)
--- End quote ---

Being charged with littering is much more more likely.  ;)

One thing that didn't completely surprise me was this:

From the website www.tweenbots.com/:
Over the course of the following months, throughout numerous missions, the Tweenbots were successful in rolling from their start point to their far-away destination assisted only by strangers. Every time the robot got caught under a park bench, ground futilely against a curb, or became trapped in a pothole, some passerby would always rescue it and send it toward its goal. Never once was a Tweenbot lost or damaged. Often, people would ignore the instructions to aim the Tweenbot in the “right” direction, if that direction meant sending the robot into a perilous situation. One man turned the robot back in the direction from which it had just come, saying out loud to the Tweenbot, "You can’t go that way, it’s toward the road.”
--- End quote ---

Having spent my share of time in NYC, I've found that the majority of the 'natives' I've met are remarkably sympathetic and helpful towards people & pets in need of assistance. Being nice to a cute little cardboard bot strikes me as a natural extension of that behavior.

NY is also one of the few American cities I've ever been in where asking for directions is seldom a problem. They seem to enjoy pointing people in the right direction. (I've even had people come up and ask me if I needed help when it was obvious I was either lost or looking for something.) I get the feeling that most New Yorkers are rather proud of how well they know their way around town.

It would be interesting to try this experiment in some other cities and compare the results.

nudone:
It would be interesting to try this experiment in some other cities and compare the results.
-40hz (April 15, 2009, 01:48 PM)
--- End quote ---

i'd like to see it done in the UK. and, i'd hope that i'd be proven wrong that some little sod wouldn't jump on the tweenbot within about 5 minutes of the experiment starting.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page